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11-06-2026
JERUSALEM/ TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: Iran and Israel have halted their mutual attacks, but Tehran has warned that strikes will resume if Israel continues its “aggression”, including in Lebanon.
US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “be careful, or you will be on your own very soon”, according to the Axios news site, as Israel’s strikes on Beirut and Iran threaten the US ceasefire with Tehran.
Iran’s chief negotiator with the US and parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Tehran has “disrupted” a ceasefire that was on paper only while “repeated violations” were carried out on the ground, and warned that there was no “genuine will to build trust”.
The US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces attacked and disabled an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman that was heading towards an Iranian port, adding that a total of seven vessels have now been struck similarly since the US imposed a blockade on Iran’s ports in April.
Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon killed at least a dozen people on Monday, including a woman and child, with four Lebanese paramedics wounded, as the death toll from Israel’s onslaught on the country since March reached 3,637.
US Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has called for a new investigation into Israel’s deadly 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, which was struck off Egypt, leaving 34 US service members dead and 170 injured.
Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC and an international adviser for the Jewish Voice for Peace activist group, told media that there is no real shift in US policy toward Israel despite tough rhetoric from President Donald Trump
Bennis said that Trump’s warnings were merely an attempt to appear firmer on Israel than he actually is, noting that “the words could be significant if they were matched by actions”.
“What we see now are a set of words, ‘You better be careful, you’ll find yourself acting alone’, that are not backed up by actions,” Bennis said.
She pointed out that as long as Washington continues providing billions in military aid, shielding Israel from accountability at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, and keeps US weapons flowing, “the words just don’t mean very much”.
According to Bennis, this approach mirrors the policy seen during the first years of the Gaza genocide under former US President Joe Biden and later under President Trump, where leadership would say “please stop killing so many Palestinians” while continuing to supply unlimited weapons and taxpayer funding.
“As long as that continues, there’s really no reason that Netanyahu should assume that he has to worry about the words that sound very good to a US domestic audience,” she said.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, has told Fox News that negotiations between the US and Iran have “nothing to do with Lebanon”, while also claiming that “Lebanon will not have a future if it remains linked to Iran”.
“The main issue here is that Iran is trying to connect the negotiations with the United States with Lebanon, and they have nothing to do with Lebanon,” the Israeli ambassador to the US said.
“When we hit Hezbollah, that has nothing to do with Iran, and they have to stay out of it,” Leiter added.
Hezbollah reported launching a series of targeted strikes against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, hitting troop concentrations, military vehicles, and logistical equipment across several flashpoint areas. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
